2010 Warmest Year on Record

Anyone see John lately? He said the earth is cooling. Yeah, right.

By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
Last year tied with 2005 as the world's warmest on record, according to data released Wednesday by the National Climatic Data Center. Records began in 1880.
It was also the wettest year on record globally as measured by average precipitation, according to the center. Heavy rain in Asia due to the monsoon (which led to disastrous floods in Pakistan) and tropical storms in Central America contributed to the extreme precipitation amounts.

The Earth's average temperature in 2010, as in 2005, was 58.12 degrees, which is 1.12 degrees above the 20th-century average of 57 degrees.

It was the 34th consecutive year that the global temperature was above average, according to the data center. The last below-average year was 1976.

Not so fast, says Pat Michaels, a climatologist with the Cato Institute in Washington. "If you draw a trend line from the data, it's pretty flat from the 1990s. We don't see much of a warming trend over the past 12 years."

He says the gloom-and-doom projections on global warming are likely to be too hot. "The projections will have to come down," Michaels says.

The climate center reports that the global land surface temperatures for 2010 were the warmest on record, at 1.80 degrees above the 20th-century average. The global ocean surface temperature for 2010 tied with 2005 as the third-warmest on record, at 0.88 degrees above the 20th-century average.

Several exceptional heat waves occurred during 2010, the center reported, bringing record high temperatures and affecting tens of millions of people. Russia endured an unprecedented two-month heat wave last summer: On July 29, the Moscow Observatory recorded its highest-ever temperature of 100.8 degrees.

"Although we can't attribute any individual event to climate change," Easterling says, "the probability of these events does increase as the climate warms."

Center data show the global average surface temperature has risen more than 1 degree since the start of the 20th century. Much of the warmth occurred in the past three decades. Nine of the Earth's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and all 12 of the warmest years have occurred since 1997.

In a separate global temperature report released last week, 2010 finished in a tie with 1998 for the warmest year in the 32-year satellite temperature record, according to John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH).

Unlike the climate center's surface-based temperatures, UAH's data are based on instruments aboard satellites from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about 5 miles above sea level.

The satellite data show that the globe continues to warm unevenly. Warming increases as you go north: The Arctic Ocean has warmed an average of almost 3 degrees in the past 32 years.

Another global surface temperature report released Wednesday — from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York — said 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest year.

For those who want to keep sticking their head in the sand about man's relationship to our future weather pattern:

STOCKHOLM – Though you can't make a direct link between Australia's killer floods and climate change, they do hold a warning for the future: Scientists predict such extreme weather events will increase both in intensity and frequency as the planet warms.
Raging floodwaters have swamped thousands of homes and businesses in Queensland, leaving at least 25 people dead and dozens more missing since late November. Rail lines and highways have been washed away in what is shaping up to become Australia's costliest natural disaster.
The flooding follows a spate of severe natural disasters in the past year. While the most deadly was Haiti's earthquake, extreme weather also killed thousands of people across the globe, including a scorching heat wave that choked Russia in the summer and devastating floods that engulfed more than 60,000 square miles (150,000 square kilometers) in Pakistan.
"The Earth is delivering a message to us. And the message is that more extreme weather is becoming the norm rather than the exception," said John Magrath, a climate change researcher at British charity Oxfam.
He said there is a misconception that global warming only means higher temperatures. "It actually means more energy in the climatic system, which stimulates extremes and more chaotic behavior," Magrath said.
Droughts and floods are expected to become more severe as global temperatures climb. Less clear is the impact on wind patterns and ocean currents, factors that could alter climate in potentially dramatic ways not fully understood yet.
Last year tied with 2005 as the warmest on record, with combined global land and ocean surface temperatures rising 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degrees Celsius) above normal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday.
In the U.S., it was the 23rd warmest year on record and the 14th year in a row with an annual temperature above the long-term average, according to NOAA's preliminary analysis.
Meanwhile, the extent of Arctic sea ice in the summer — a key indicator of global warming — was at its third lowest level, behind 2007 and 2008.
Most atmospheric scientists attribute most of the warming seen in recent decades to gases released into the air by industrial processes and gasoline-burning engines.
Australia's floods, which started in late November, have been linked to the La Nina weather phenomenon, which refers to cooler than normal surface sea temperatures in parts of the Pacific, causing disruptions in weather patterns. La Nina occurs naturally, and the link to climate change remains unclear, said Omar Baddour of the World Meteorological Organization.
"But as we know, extreme events whether their cause is due to La Nina or El Nino or other factors, will be more intense in the era of climate change," he added.
Reinsurer Munich Re counted nearly 1,000 natural disasters in 2010 — nine-tenths of them weather-related — the second highest number since 1980. The resulting economic losses totaled $130 billion, the German company said earlier this month.
"The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change," Munich Re said.
Scientists caution against drawing conclusions about climate change from a single storm, flood, cold snap or heat wave. Natural variability is and will always be a factor when it comes to extreme weather.
Still, single events can be useful in highlighting shortcomings in our preparedness for a warmer world more prone to extremes, said Markku Rummukainen, a climate scientist at Lund University in Sweden.
"For example, that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans does not have to have anything to do with climate change, but it revealed vulnerabilities that hadn't been considered," said Rummukainen, who is also involved in drafting the next report by the U.N.'s expert panel on climate change. "It remains to be seen what conclusions can be drawn in Australia."

I've traditionally stayed away on the discussion of global warming believing the discourse was politically motivated. So now I hear an interview with Patrick Moore, founder of Green Peace, who appears to be taking a longer term view of the situation (as in the Earth is 100 million years old). What do you think of this guy? I may get interested in this subject.

The people who are really politicising this subject are the global warming deniers like John.
The overwhelming majority of scientists understand its happening and needs to be taken seriously. I just attended a global infrastructure conference and the businessman at the conference take it very seriously as well.

I heard him once on NPR promoting his film. From what i remember, he defitinitely believes in global warming and believes its a serious problem. I just think he has some different ideas how to try to go about solving it and doesnt believe in some of Al Gore's timelines.

Did i summarize his point of view correctly.
Maybe you can post something about him.

P.S. This year tied for warmest year on record, so anyone who says the climate is cooling has been proven completely wrong.

Well, actually, he doesn't believe in global warming. That's what took me. You'd think that was one thing he would believe. One could think it a tenant of environmentalism. He does believe that we must reduce the combustion of fossil fuels, but his take on global warming is that the earth is 100 MM years old, and we simply don't have the data to say we are warming due to man. He appears to believe we are warming due to the natural ebb and flow of the earth. Here's one quote.

"Moore calls global warming the "most difficult issue facing the scientific community today in terms of being able to actually predict with any kind of accuracy what's going to happen".[31] In 2006, he wrote to the Royal Society arguing there was "no scientific proof" that mankind was causing global warming"

This link should explain everything lol. It has a link to the interview. Watch it for yourself if you can stomach Stuart Varney lol.